


his lovely boldness

by orphan_account



Category: K-pop, VIXX
Genre: A Series of Vignettes, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Rare Pairings, Unrequited Crush, plural unrequited crushes, this is all over the place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 03:30:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13650510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The unnamed hurt receded just enough for Wonshik to make out each distinct emotion in the tangled pile, happiness, loneliness, envy. Hakyeon was out drinking tea and watching movies with Wongeun.Well, good. Hakyeon worked too hard, lines of fatigue etched permanently into his posture and face, schooled into careful invisibility and perfect angles every day. Hakyeon needed torelax.He needed to relax with someone who didn’t sit tense and rigid outside badly-soundproofed doors and listen to the raised voices in management meetings.Hakyeon and his lovers, through the years.





	his lovely boldness

**Author's Note:**

> listen,
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> these are arranged chronologically. you will understand soon

**Taekwoon**

Hakyeon sat him down on his bed, closed the door. Taekwoon saw him sweep his gaze down the hallway for lurking eavesdroppers.

He picked up Taekwoon’s hands in his own, but Taekwoon tugged them away, not meeting Hakyeon’s eyes. "Taekwoon-ah," Hakyeon began, his tone gentle but brooking no evasion. "Taekwoon-ah, are you upset?"

Admitting you were upset to Hakyeon was how he got you. He came on all concerned and worldly and before you knew it you were caught in some horrendously demonstrative display of affection. Taekwoon stayed silent. He focused his gaze on Hakyeon’s knee, bare skin through the window of his ripped jeans.

"We’re idols," Hakyeon said carefully. "We’re new. We have to do a lot of unpleasant things." He gave up on trying to make eye contact or touch Taekwoon, folding his hands in his lap. Taekwoon made a soft, neutral noise, just to let Hakyeon know he was listening. "I know you’re not comfortable. I do listen to you, Taekwoon-ah, I promise. You’ve been off all evening, though."

Thinking that it might speed this process along, Taekwoon mumbled, "MBLAQ." And he didn’t look up at Hakyeon, but Hakyeon’s shadow shifted and Taekwoon knew he was tipping his head back in realization.

"That silly idol thing," Hakyeon said. Unnecessarily. Hakyeon always said so much more than he needed to. "That paper kiss game. Taekwoon-ah, are you upset because of the paper kiss game?"

Taekwoon nodded absently, his chest feeling tight. It wasn’t just a _silly idol thing_. Taekwoon had accepted, at length, under very similar circumstances, that silly idol things were the dowry he’d given in his marriage to music. Today, Taekwoon had been truly bad at something for the first time in a long time—he could picture, if he tried, Hongbin’s face, exasperated over and over as Taekwoon sighed and turned away. They all laughed at him. Tall, silent Leo, who couldn’t read the act as well as the others.

And when he’d tried to justify himself— _What kind of man likes to touch lips with another man?_ —more laughter, heedless of the way Taekwoon was reeling inside, his heart pounding, remembering meeting his first girlfriend at the church he’d attended his entire life. He’d grown up alongside her and he’d finally gotten up the courage to ask her out, and they’d parted because Taekwoon took everything the preacher said to heart and she didn’t—when she’d guided his hand between her legs he’d shut down completely and offered to walk her home.

He’d opened up some around the others, around Hakyeon and Jaehwan, who represented his generation, who quietly accepted difference and questioned the way things had always been. He’d seen Hongbin leaning in, though, and it had all come whirling back to hit him at once. Taekwoon could do so many mortifying things. He could not do this.

He fingered the cross around his neck, trying to get the panic under control. It lanced across his chest, physically painful. He dropped his hand to his knee, plucking at the seam of his worn sweatpants.

"Taekwoon-ah," Hakyeon pried, pulling him out of his spiraling anguish. "Will you tell me why you’re upset about the paper kiss game?"

"I said it already," Taekwoon muttered, tugging at a thread he’d loosened with his fidgeting. "What kind of man likes to kiss other men."

"I don’t think any of us _like_ to play that game," Hakyeon objected, and then amended, "Maybe Jaehwan. But Jaehwan also likes _Bleach_ , even though it has more episodes than any reasonable show ought to." Hakyeon was trying to be a good leader, so Taekwoon granted him a tiny, fleeting smile, just to let him know he was doing well. He lifted his eyes to watch Hakyeon smile back, immediately dropped them again. "Taekwoon-ah, what kind of man likes to kiss women?"

Why was Hakyeon being purposely obtuse? "A normal one," Taekwoon responded quietly. "Normal men like to kiss women, hyung."

"And what kind of man likes to kiss men, then?" Hakyeon asked. He obviously had some path of logic mapped out in his mind, but Taekwoon couldn’t see it, too wrapped up in the way his entire body felt like he’d missed a step on a staircase, or like everything in his room had shifted just slightly.

"Men don’t kiss other men," Taekwoon explained with all the patience of his Christian upbringing.

"Okay," Hakyeon conceded. "But Taekwoon-ah, if I asked you to describe Jung Taekwoon in one word, it would be—"

"Singer," Taekwoon cut him off. "Jung Taekwoon is a singer."

Hakyeon was quiet for a moment, letting Taekwoon’s words hang in the air. When he spoke, it was with that same gentle tone from before. "So maybe you’re thinking about it a little wrong, Taekwoon-ah. Being a man isn’t the most important thing to Jung Taekwoon. Being a singer is. And the singer Leo has to do the paper kiss game. It…won’t make you feel better right away, but playing that game doesn’t even involve manly-man Leo."

Hakyeon trailed off, stood up, and brushed off his jeans. "It’s enough for now, though, don’t you think?" Taekwoon’s mind raced. "Reflect on it, Taekwoon-ah."

Hakyeon’s bare feet tapped against the floor as he left the room.

***

**Hongbin**

Hongbin would never admit it, not under pain of torture, but even after years of living together, he still stayed up waiting for everyone to come home.

...Which was why he was gaming in the living room at half-past midnight, while the dorm lay quiet and still around the tapping of his keyboard. If he were asked, he would have cited not wanting to disturb any of the four slumbering members, not for the sake of online games and their universally shit players.

And so when headlights drew closer to their building, flooding the darkness of the living room, Hongbin would furthermore not have admitted to the sweeping sense of relief that washed over him, and would simply have calmly closed his laptop (which he did) and gone to peer through the tasteful curtains at the scene outside.Hakyeon, standing outside a company car, looking expectantly down at an opening door. A tall, willowy man stepped out; Hongbin recognized it as Minhyuk. Which, in itself, was not remarkable—Hakyeon and Minhyuk had been fast friends since they'd met the members of BTOB, like Sungjae and Sanghyuk.

No, what was morbidly intriguing, what tugged tenderly at something behind Hongbin's heart, was the way Hakyeon leaned in to speak to Minhyuk, the way Minhyuk's smile spread across his entire face in the washout of the street lamps, how he tossed his head back in laughter and Hakyeon scrubbed a hand over the back of his hair bashfully. None of it truly remarkable, as a set of points. As a shape, though, the way Hakyeon took Minhyuk's hand in both of his was sweet and earnest, had Hongbin looking away from the window just long enough to feel ashamed. Like he was witnessing something private, something he wasn't meant to see. Something for Hakyeon and Minhyuk and them alone.

When he glanced back up, they were standing farther apart, just talking, Minhyuk's hands cutting adamantly through the air and Hakyeon's at his sides. And then Hakyeon was leaning in, letting Minhyuk hug him tightly, just a beat too long. That _something_ pulled tighter in Hongbin's sternum, nervous and fluttery. He opened his laptop—and, in doing so, prepared to take the lecture from Hakyeon—but closed it again, opting to look instead as though he'd fallen asleep waiting up for Hakyeon. There was no way a sleeping Hongbin could have been watching voyeuristically out the window as Hakyeon interacted with Minhyuk, after all.

When Hakyeon entered the dorm, it was with the quiet shuffle they all used when they were trying to be particularly stealthy at odd hours of the night. Hongbin heard Hakyeon's soft, exasperated exhale as his eyes lit on Hongbin, asleep on the couch, his laptop abandoned on their low coffee table.

Footsteps, hands on his shoulders. Hongbin resolutely did not flinch at the sudden contact.

"Hongbinnie," Hakyeon's urgent whisper floated down to him. "Wake up."

"Mmmhakyeon?" he slurred groggily, and Hakyeon's fond smile greeted his eyes when he opened them. "You're home?"

"You should be in bed," Hakyeon chastised him in a low murmur. "Not out here gaming."

A conversation they'd had before, many times. "—time is it?" Hongbin asked, and Hakyeon's hand ran absently through Hongbin's hair, clean and mussed from his shower earlier. It curled gently between Hakyeon's fingers.

"It's almost one. We have to be up for schedules."

"Oh," Hongbin muttered. "Well, fuck."

"Yah," Hakyeon whispered fiercely, tugging harshly at a wayward curl. "Get up, go sleep in your bed."

Hongbin met Hakyeon's eyes, saw heaviness setting in already from the sleep he'd missed out on. Made a conscious decision to put aside his confusion, not to ask himself _why_  Hakyeon had left them for so long, why he'd only returned once they'd all given up, one by one, and gone to bed. Hakyeon seemed to sense the tension in the stalemate between them, though, because he ruffled Hongbin's hair again, more roughly this time.

"Minhyuk wanted to watch buskers," Hakyeon laughed. "We got food afterwards. I'm tired, Hongbinnie, go to bed so I can go to bed."

"Not like you're going to be a functional human being anyway," Hongbin grumbled, but did as he was bidden, still feeling unsettled, like something was being kept from him in Hakyeon's stupid giant eye bags.

***

**Jaehwan**

"Don't," Hakyeon sighed as Jaehwan looked entirely too smug for such an obscene hour of the morning. Jaehwan, for his part, just hummed mysteriously (such as he could) and trudged toward the coffeepot.

"You know, hyung," he began, and Hakyeon said, again, "Don't." Jaehwan turned to face him, coffee mug now clutched securely in his hand. "Who was it for, hyung," Jaehwan asked obnoxiously. Everything he did was obnoxious. What time was it, even? Hakyeon sighed. Again.

"I don't see how that's your concern. How do you know it wasn't just for me?"

Jaehwan snorted into his allotted caffeine. "Hyung, no one gets _that_ dressed up to take selcas. And _that's_ not going on your Instagram. So who's it for?"

Hakyeon's head made a thudding noise when it hit the table. "Jaehwanie, drop it," he demanded weakly, his phone vibrating twice, short, intermittent buzzes on the table.

Jaehwan blinked innocently down at Hakyeon. "Hyung, if you didn't want me to see it, you should have made sure you were sending it to the right person." And Hakyeon was obviously one false move away from actually murdering Jaehwan, so Jaehwan advanced his little investigation all by himself. "Was it a girl? Hyung, are you sending pictures of yourself in lacy stockings to a _girl?_ "

Hakyeon's only answer was a groan of exasperation. So Jaehwan persevered, because that was what he did, like, semi-professionally. "Hyung," he tried again. If at first you don't succeed... "Hyung, were you sending it to a boy?"

"Jaehwan, I told you to drop it. It's five in the morning. My head hurts." Oh, so that was the time. Good to know. It wouldn't get Hakyeon out of this, though.

"They were nice stockings, hyung," Jaehwan cajoled. "It was a really pretty picture. I just wanna know why you were taking it in the first place." He paused, contemplating the depths of his coffee mug. "Well, I guess I want to know a lot of other things, too, but first, I think, why."

"It was just for myself," Hakyeon argued, and Hakyeon's phone buzzed again. Jaehwan swiped it from the table before Hakyeon could lurch to grab it out of Jaehwan's reach. Jaehwan didn't unlock it, because he wasn't quite that brand of snoop, but he did look at the lock screen, where Kakao flashed a notification from "Wongeunie~Cheer up~."

"Wongeunie?" Jaehwan teased. "You're texting Wongeun? Do you miss having friends, hyung?" And then it hit him, with the same sluggish slotting into place that usually happened when his morning caffeine finally metabolized. "Oh. Lee Wongeun. Lee Jaehwan." A beat. "Our names are probably....right next to each other's in your contact list, huh, hyung?"

Hakyeon didn't dignify him with a response this time, and Jaehwan considered this a victory, sipping triumphantly at his coffee. It scalded his tongue. He swore. Hakyeon chided him for his language.

"You and Wongeun?"

Hakyeon remained silent. He sipped a cup of green tea that had to have long since gone gross and cold.

Jaehwan knew basically nothing about the machinations of Hakyeon's love life. Until just now, he hadn't considered the possibility that Hakyeon _had_ a love life. But now it was on his mind, and he wondered about how this whole thing worked. If, indeed, there was something to work or otherwise.

"How does that work?" Jaehwan asked, because he was many things, and he'd been accused of them all at least once, but he'd never been accused of being _subtle_.

"How does what work?"

"The uh..." Another sip of his coffee. "You and Wongeun." How did he even ask—of course. "Which of you is Spiderman and which one is Deadpool?" 

"Lee Jaehwan, it is five in the morning." 

"So?"

"So I have no earthly idea what the hell you're saying to me right now."

Jaehwan shrugged. "You don't know what I'm talking about...most of the time, hyung. 'Who were you sending it to,' 'who's Spiderman.' Hyung, you should really go outside more." It occurred to Jaehwan that Hakyeon may have had an angle. "Wait. No. You're not distracting me that easily. Hyung!"

Hakyeon lifted his head from the table and shot a knowing smirk Jaehwan's way. It had almost worked. The sneaky, sneaky bastard.

"Jaehwanie, whatever you think is going on, it probably isn't," Hakyeon hedged. "I meant to send that to myself. I told you."

"Sure, hyung," Jaehwan chirped, sipping at his coffee. "You're Spiderman, though."

Hakyeon's head met the table again. "I still have no idea what you mean. Really, truly, I don't."

Jaehwan gestured vaguely in the air with both of his hands, his coffee coming precariously close to spilling over the brim of his mug and leaving a disastrous, sticky mess all over the floor. "It's...you know what, never mind. You've got to be Spiderman. There's no way you're Deadpool, you're too skinny. Hyung, can Wongeun pick you up and throw you over his shoulder like a sack of flour?"

"I—have—no idea—what you mean," Hakyeon ground out through clenched teeth. "Time to drop it, Jaehwanie, officially." 

That was a yes, then. 

When Wonshik came staggering into the kitchen, searching blindly for coffee, Jaehwan was still smiling proudly into a lukewarm concoction of sugar and milk.

***

**Wonshik**

_hakyeon, are you out?_

Wonshik stirred his noodles idly, waiting for them to cool. His puppy sniffed around his feet, looking for the source of the smell, and Wonshik nudged him with one foot, patting him gently with his toes. He got a wet lick for his troubles.

Buzz. His phone lit up with a message from Hakyeon.

This could all have been done in the group chat, Wonshik mused as he swiped the notification - _Hakyeonnie sent a photo_. But instead, Sanghyuk had asked Hongbin to ask Wonshik where Hakyeon was, and Wonshik wasn’t looking for a fight with the maknae today.

It was a picture of Hakyeon with Wongeun, in someone’s living room, Wongeun’s probably, curled up on the couch under a shared blanket, mugs of tea in the background. Not touching. Not particularly close. Hakyeon was smiling a bit in the selfie, though.

Something pulled tight and swollen in Wonshik’s chest. Happiness that Hakyeon was out—Hakyeon was _never_ out—with someone he obviously liked. Enough to meet privately with him, to cuddle on the couch and drink tea and just _exist_ together.

A twinge of peculiar sadness stung its way through Wonshik’s heart, too, as he looked at the picture.

 _what are you doing?_ he sent back.

The message went unread until Wonshik was chasing the last of his noodles out of the paper container, his puppy snoring quietly under Wonshik’s desk.

Buzz.

Wonshik dropped his chopsticks and fumbled his phone into his hand. The notification this time says _Hakyeonnie: We’re watching a movi…_

_We’re watching a movie. I think wongeun has a recipe he wants to try out after. i’ll probably be out all evening. what’s up?_

_sanghyuk needs to say something to you. i didn’t ask._ Why did Wonshik’s hands shake as he tapped out the message? He leaned down, scooped Eongdeongie into his arms, crushed him gently to Wonshik’s chest. The unnamed hurt receded just enough for Wonshik to make out each distinct emotion in the tangled pile, happiness, loneliness, envy. Hakyeon was out drinking tea and watching movies with Wongeun.

Well, good. Hakyeon worked too hard, lines of fatigue etched permanently into his posture and face, schooled into careful invisibility and perfect angles every day. Hakyeon needed to _relax_. He needed to relax with someone who didn’t sit tense and rigid outside badly-soundproofed doors and listen to the raised voices in management meetings.

Eongdeongie squirmed in his embrace. Wonshik inhaled deeply and pushed his mouth against the velveteen fur of his puppy’s head. It shuddered out in a series of loud, smacking kisses, the soggy warmth of dog breath fanning out over Wonshik’s face.

Whatever the _hell_ was wrong with Wonshik, at least Hakyeon was happy.

***

**Sanghyuk**

Sanghyuk knocked obnoxiously on Hakyeon’s door for the third time. “Yah, Cha Hakyeon! We’ve been planning this for weeks!” Sanghyuk had missed Hakyeon’s housewarming party, on-set for a drama filming, and so had summarily demanded Hakyeon cook for him as soon as filming was over.

Hence his standing on Hakyeon’s doorstep for…five minutes now. Sanghyuk huffed as he dropped his phone back into his bag. Tacky, obnoxious, a gift from Jaehwan that Sanghyuk hadn’t had the heart to return. Not with the way Jaehwan moved so continuously between Taipei and Seoul, somehow constantly missing them all. Well, all except Taekwoon. The two of them were inseparable. Sanghyuk had received a joint Christmas card from them, the pair of them smiling wide and cheesy, surrounded by their colleagues from the latest musical.

Just as Sanghyuk lifted his fist to pound on the door a _fourth_ time, it swung open to admit a harassed-looking Cha Hakyeon, still shorter than Sanghyuk. That he was barefoot only exacerbated it.

"Your crow’s feet are deeper," Sanghyuk said by way of greeting, earning him a firm smack to the chest.

"Brat! I’ve been cooking all morning and you insult me!" He stepped aside nevertheless, allowing Sanghyuk to cross over the threshold and toe off his shoes.

As soon as they were gone, Hakyeon crushed Sanghyuk into a hug, his arms holding the same wiry strength as ever. Sanghyuk grumbled in token protest, but squeezed Hakyeon to himself, scrunched his eyes shut against the welling of emotion triggered by Hakyeon’s familiar cologne. "You need someone to keep you humble," Sanghyuk sniffed against Hakyeon’s hair—coarse, but no longer stiff with product—as he held onto Hakyeon for perhaps a bit longer than necessary.

Hakyeon was better now at companionable silence. It fell around them like a warm blanket, Hakyeon’s petite form flush against Sanghyuk’s chest.

A voice broke the silence from within, calling loudly, "Hakyeon, is that Sanghyuk?"

Hakyeon pulled his face away from Sanghyuk’s chest. "Make yourself presentable, whether it’s Sanghyuk or not!" he yelled back. "I told you to get dressed an hour ago!"

"Cha Hakyeon! I have been up to my balls in cleaning products for—" A figure emerged from a room down the hallway. "—at least three hours, because your tight ass can’t be bothered to wipe up your seventy-three skincare products. Good afternoon, Sanghyuk."

Sanghyuk disentangled himself from Hakyeon hastily. "Wongeun? Did you get shorter?"

Another smack to Sanghyuk’s chest from a feisty Hakyeon, who flew across the room to administer the same treatment to Wongeun. "Brat!" Hakyeon protested again, but it had no fight behind it. "Wongeun. Thank you for cleaning the bathroom." A beat. "And for putting on real pants." Sanghyuk personally didn’t think Wongeun had ever in his life looked less than presentable, but Sanghyuk had also roomed with Wonshik for years.

"You ask so little," Wongeun teased, pushing Hakyeon aside to sidle up to Sanghyuk and shake his hand firmly. “Hakyeon’s been looking forward to your coming,” he confessed with a conspiratorial wink. Sanghyuk’s mind reeled. "He hasn’t shut up about _Sanghyukkie would want this or that_ since you set the date."

"Lee Wongeun, go do something useful with yourself and stop conspiring against me," Hakyeon demanded pointedly, tugging ineffectually at Wongeun’s arm until Wongeun raised an eyebrow down at him. "You know what you could be doing? Making sure dessert is ready. And what are you doing?"

A slow smile spread over Wongeun’s face. "Giving you hell." Their gazes met, Wongeun’s amused and Hakyeon’s pugnacious, until Wongeun relented. "I’ll check on dessert, you tiny, terrifying man. I’m shaking in my metaphorical boots, really." Hakyeon’s lips twisted into a grudging smile as Wongeun left, in all probability to the kitchen.

"Ugh," Hakyeon declared, turning back to Sanghyuk, whose eyebrows had sketched a path nearly into his hairline. “Why can’t anyone in my life be _tractable_.”

"Wonshik is tractable," Sanghyuk argued, and Hakyeon hummed his concession. "Dessert?"

"Dessert," Hakyeon confirmed. "You have to eat dessert. It’s not optional. You’re getting skinny." He wound an arm around Sanghyuk’s waist. "Come on, you get the grand tour."

Sanghyuk let Hakyeon drag him around the modest house. Living room, redolent of scented candles and the arranged flowers on every available surface. Master bedroom, bed hastily made, guest bedroom, untouched. Guest bathroom, pleasantly decorated, homemade potpourri in a decorative dish on the counter, but otherwise impersonal.

"Hyung, was Wongeun visiting for the afternoon?" Sanghyuk asked, curious.

Hakyeon tugged the guest bathroom door shut and began guiding Sanghyuk toward the kitchen. "Dining room," he said unnecessarily, gesturing to the grand table, the china cabinet. Of course Hakyeon owned a china cabinet. "He wasn’t visiting, he lives here. Kitchen," Hakyeon finished, pointing down the hallway where Wongeun had disappeared.

"Lives here?"

"We split the mortgage."

" _Mortgage?_ "

Hakyeon batted at Sanghyuk’s arm irritably. "It’s cheaper to own a house in the long run. We’re not in our twenties anymore."

As Sanghyuk was thrust bodily onto the couch and forcefully served tea, he wondered which _we_ Hakyeon was talking about.

**Author's Note:**

> leave me a comment~


End file.
